Sunday, February 15, 2009

Eight Is Great

Since we went up to LA yesterday to visit Dad & Shelly and to visit my mom's resting place, we didn't get to run with WCRR again this week. So this morning after some breakfast, we went out to Solana Beach to run our 8 miles. I mapped out the route at Gmap-Pedometer again, and checked the weather. Cloudy all day. Perfect for running! From Fletcher Cove at Solana Beach, we headed south on the 101, taking a side route at Coast Blvd in Del Mar, then up 15th back to the 101 to Torrey Pines. Seagrove Park in Del Mar, next to Jake's Del Mar Restaurant. Photobucket I ran by so many nice restaurants by the ocean! And the smell of breakfast coming from each of them made my mouth water... Oh, since it was a cloudy day, all my photos turned out kinda blah and gray. Adobe Lightroom to the rescue! I used this preset that came with LR called "Direct Positive", and it made my gray skies and ocean turn blue, LOL! The run was hilly again this week. I can't seem to pick a flat route! So I was heading up hill and coming around this bend, where I knew I would be heading downhill soon. This was close to the 4 mile turnaround in Torrey Pines. Photobucket When lo and behold look who I ran into! Photobucket Todd was faster than me so he had turned around and was heading back. So I asked him to take a photo of me too. Photobucket Not too proud of the sweaty look, but hey, it's been almost 4 miles! So I ran down the hill to Torrey Pines State Beach. This view is one of my favorites in San Diego. You come around the bend and go downhill and you suddenly see the ocean. I love it! Photobucket After the turnaround, coming back uphill wasn't quite as fun. Photobucket Wish this was my house. What a view, and what a cool looking house with solar power. Photobucket I felt pretty good during the whole run and I ran a perfect split - the same time for the first four miles as the last four miles. I brought a packet of Vanilla Bean GU and sucked it down at the 4 mile turnaround. The GU gave me good energy for the rest of the run. This was Todd's first time eating a GU and he told me afterward that he loved it, LOL. Him and his sweet tooth. Here are my stats from the run, courtesy of the Garmin Forerunner. Photobucket Photobucket I also had the Garmin software interface with Google Earth, and saw my route from satellite imagery. Pretty darn cool! Photobucket So the reason we started and ended the run in Solana Beach was so we could go to our favorite pizza place, Bongiornos, afterwards. Sad but true, we plan runs around eating. Todd digging in: Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket After some showering and cleaning up, we rested and played on the computer in the afternoon. Then we went out to dinner at Tofu House, an excellent Tofu-oriented (hence the name) Korean restaurant in Kearny Mesa. We decided that tofu soups were a perfect anecdote to the cold and wettish weather we're having. At Korean restaurants, you get little side dishes of marinated veggies (background). In the foreground is my Seafood Special Tofu soup. Photobucket Todd got a BBQ beef tofu soup, which he liked, but said the BBQ beef's flavor got redundant after a while. Photobucket After dinner we went to Road Runner Sports nearby. Yes, there was an actual reason for the trip besides eating. Although that is reason enough in and of itself. :) They have a "Shoe Dog" service at RRS, where an expert looks at your feet and have you run barefoot on the treadmill while they videotape your stride to see what your feet do when you run. To check whether you need more supportive shoes because your feet pronate too much. Then you walk across this pad on the floor, one foot at a time. The pad measures heat as your foot strikes it, and they can tell by the heat map of your feet how your feet hit the ground and where the pressure points are. To make a long story short, I was told that I'm wearing the right running shoes (Saucony Progrid Ride, which is a neutral running shoe), as long as I wear my green Superfeet inserts (which I do). My ankles roll in slightly when I run (I totally saw evidence of this on the video they took!), but the green Superfeet inserts corrected it and I don't need stability shoes. Todd on the other hand needed stability shoes, and he had been wearing neutral shoes. So the guy brought out four pairs and he ended up getting a pair of Asics, which he said felt good. And we got more GU! Because Todd likes them now. :)
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Saturday, February 14, 2009

Day of Remembrance

Photo today: Photobucket Today's the 2nd anniversary of my mom going to heaven. I still can't bring myself to really celebrate Valentine's Day. I cried a little bit as my dad said a prayer by her earthly resting place. My mom served the Lord her whole life. When she graduated from college she joined Campus Evangelical Fellowship in Taiwan, where she ministered to many college kids on campuses, and led Bible studies. After my parents got married, they both served on staff with Campus Evangelical Fellowship. Then we moved to the U.S. and my dad went to seminary. Then he became a pastor, so my mom was a pastor's wife for the rest of her life. She really loved the Lord and chose to spend her whole life serving Him. I'm certain that she ran the good race and got a "well done" from God when she got to heaven.
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Friday, February 13, 2009

I'll Take It!

Photo today: Photobucket Today Wacom announced their Penscrappers Season 2 contest winner and the runner-ups, so I can finally announce here that I am a runner-up! Thanks to your votes, my layout "We Are Buckeyes" in the Sports category was a runner-up! (Thanks Jennifer for voting for me, even though you are a Fighting Illini!) They sent me the email to tell me last week. Then I emailed them back some information about me, plus my shipping address. Just THREE short business days later, I got my Bamboo Craft prize package in the mail! I'm so impressed with Wacom. I thought it would take a couple of months for them to get the prize package to me. What is the Bamboo Craft you ask? It is a special package of products they've put together just for us digi-scrappers! It includes a small tablet: Photobucket Plus these other items:
  • A 26-session training DVD from Jane Conner-ziser and Software Cinema showing you how to use the pen with the software included in the box
  • A 28-page instructional book called Scrappin' With A Tablet by Amanda Dykan to help you jump right into digital scrapbooking and art projects
  • A fun Digi-Scappin' CD of complimentary embellishments
  • Adobe® Photoshop® Elements (6.0 WIN/5.0 MAC), the perfect application for editing photos
  • Corel® Painter™ Essentials 4.0 for designing you own artwork and embellishments
  • Nik® Color Efex Pro™ for adding unique photo effects to your digital photos
  • Free 1-year Subscription to Scrapbooking & Beyond Magazine
  • Free 8" x 8" hard-cover, professionally-bound Photo Book from Shutterfly
  • Free online store so that you can sell your artwork or creations with CafĂ© Press and $15 off you first purchase of $50 or more
Needless to say, I'm beyond excited about this! Thanks again for voting for my layouts! I fell behind on my Project 365 weekly pages the last couple of weeks. I finally got caught up! Week 5: Photobucket Full credits here. Week 6: Photobucket Full credits here.
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Thursday, February 12, 2009

Finalizing some choices

Photobucket I'm so lucky that Todd's such a good sport about me taking photos of him. :p We went to Rubios for a late lunch after spending almost three hours with one of the contractors we're considering for our kitchen and bath remodeling. Todd took the day off and I took half a day off just for meetings with two contractors. The meetings were quite productive today and we're getting really close to picking a contractor for the job. We were pretty excited because the design that we liked the most actually DIDN'T cost the most! And they gave us a full sheet of 10-12 references of completed or in-progress remodels so that we can talk to the people about their experiences with this contractor. We also spent a good hour with Jim the appliance guy, who was extremely knowledgeable and helpful to us in narrowing down our choices. I'm probably most excited about the bathroom. We are ripping out the tub and shower, and putting a 9 ft walk-in double shower in that space. I've only used the bathtub in our master bathroom FIVE times at the most since October 2001, so I won't be missing it. I know a lot of girls are bath girls but I'm not one of them. I like to get in and get out of the shower as fast as possible and get on with the rest of my life, LOL. And we'll still have tubs in the other bathrooms in case anyone would want to use one. So, besides working from 5 AM to 10 AM today, my day was pretty much taken up by remodeling related stuff. I won't be back into the office until Tuesday, so I'll have to let you know how the cherry flavoring goes with the soda then! :)
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Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Project 365 - February Template Giveaway

I have a little giveaway for you today:
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**Download link no longer available**

There are 28 spaces for photos, not including the "bits" that are too small for photos. You can fill those with papers or glitter, or whatever strikes your fancy!

After I gave away my January template, people started asking me if I would be giving away one for each month. The answer is, I plan to. I can't promise that they'll always be on time, but my plan is to give a monthly template away. :)

Photo today:
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We get FREE fountain sodas at work. I was in the break room today and saw this note attached to the soda fountain. Usually it's someone complaining about something or other.

I got closer so I could read the note:
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The photo isn't very clear. It says, "I've been experimenting with adding cherry flavor. If anyone is interested, I have "cherry concentrate" in my office. Come by." Then he left his name and cube number.

This totally made me smile! :) Here's a guy who enjoys the little pleasures of life, and wants to share it with other people. I just found it so endearing. I think it's cute that he left a note for anyone who might be interested to try out his cherry flavoring in their sodas. It's refreshing in so many ways!

We went Cajun tonight for dinner - Cajun Red Beans and Rice:
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A little bit spicy, a little bit sweet. A whole lotta yummy!
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